Twain Exhibit Examines Spiritualism Of The Time

Mark Twain attended a seance in 1866 and wrote about it with his customary cynicism and wit.

"I got hold of the right Smith at last — the particular Smith I was after — my dear, lost, lamented friend — and learned that he died a violent death. I feared as much. He said his wife talked him to death. Poor wretch!"

But during Twain's lifetime, many Americans took such things seriously. Spiritualism was trendy, especially after the Civil War, when grieving families craved communication with fallen soldiers. After Twain's daughter Susy died at age 24 in Hartford, even Twain's wife tried to communicate with her.

An exhibit opening Oct. 10 at Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, "Spiritualism, Seances and Sam," takes on the spiritualism craze of the 19th century, how it continued into the 20th, and Twain's conflicted relationship with the idea of unexplainable experiences.

"Twain was flippy-floppy about spiritualism and the afterlife. One minute he allows his wife to attend a seance to communicate with Susy and the next he said it was poppycock," said exhibit curator Mallory Howard. "He was always trying to figure out an answer without ever coming to a conclusion."

Michael McAndrews

A spirit board, one of the oldest pieces in Crush's collection, also know as Chrystal Gazer, Magic Marvel, Star Gazer, Swami, and the most well known name, Ouija board.

A spirit board, one of the oldest pieces in Crush's collection, also know as Chrystal Gazer, Magic Marvel, Star Gazer, Swami, and the most well known name, Ouija board. (Michael McAndrews)

Steve Courtney, author of "We Shall Have Them With Us Always: The Ghosts of the Mark Twain House," said even though Twain ridiculed it, later in life he became a member of the English Society for Psychical Research and read its periodicals cover-to-cover.

"He made terrific fun of it in these newspaper articles, but he did have one sort of prophetic dream before his brother died in a steamship explosion," Courtney said. "People would ask him about that and he'd say something like 'I don't expect anybody to believe that.' "

Calvin Von Crush

The Twain House exhibit is made up of 19th century mourning clothes, mourning jewelry, mourning wreaths, a "corpse preserver" and many vintage spiritualist items — spirit trumpets, spirit photographs, examples of automatic writing, mediums' props and Ouija boards — loaned to the exhibit by Calvin von Crush of New Britain.

Von Crush lives in an apartment with his girlfriend, Isabelle Rodriguez, as well as a two-headed turtle named Shelldon and Leonard. The two met, and still work, at Liberty Tattoo in Berlin. Their living space is filled with skeletons, skulls, shrunken human heads, preserved bodies of two-headed, one-eyed and otherwise freakish animals and hundreds of spiritualist artifacts.

Von Crush has collected occult and freak-show relics for years, but he is not a spiritualist. "I don't believe in any of this crap, or I'd never sleep," he said. "My house is as close as you'll come to a gateway to hell, and I sleep like a baby."

The Ouija board was invented in 1890 in Baltimore. "Back in the day, word spread slowly. In the early 1900s, the craze picked up. Anytime there was a major catastrophe, public interest in the occult and spirit communications increases," von Crush said. "It appeals to the question at the basic core of humanity, the most confusing question, 'What happens when we die?'

"It's all about the power of belief," he said. "It's much nicer to believe there are ghosts around us, not people rotting in the ground."

For that reason, von Crush said, many magicians despise spiritualists. "Especially Houdini," he said. "They felt they prey on people in mourning."

Feminists And Spiritualism

A segment of the exhibit focuses on the spiritualist beliefs of feminist activist Isabella Beecher Hooker, a Hartford resident and acquaintance of Twain.

Susan Campbell, a former columnist for The Courant and author of "Tempest-Tossed: The Spirit of Isabella Beecher Hooker," said many 19th-century suffragists were attracted to spiritualism. "It was a religion with no male hierarchy," Campbell said. "Anyone could be a medium and talk to the dead."

But Hooker was ridiculed for the fervency of her belief. "She believed in automatic writing, spiritual writing. ... There was a story of a dinner party on the first floor and a seance in her bedroom, and she ran down the stairs with a tomahawk because she said she was channeling an Indian chief," Campbell said. "History treated her shabbily ... like she was this wingnut talking to people in her attic, but there was so much more to her than that."

The Twain house is an appropriate place to hold an exhibit about ghosts. The historic home has long been rumored to be haunted, and it has been featured on the Syfy show "Ghost Hunters."

Howard, the curator, is in a unique position to curate the exhibit. Years ago, when she was working as a tour guide at the Twain, she had an odd experience, which she talked about on "Ghost Hunters."

"I was leading a tour and I saw this person float by, an apparition of a woman. My heart was pounding. My hands were shaking. I couldn't talk," she said. "I know what I saw but I don't know what it was. Was it a ghost or not? I don't know."

"SPIRITUALISM, SEANCES AND SAM'' will be at Mark Twain House & Museum, 351 Farmington Ave. in Hartford, from Oct. 10, when it opens with a reception beginning at 5:30 p.m., until Jan. 19. On Oct. 9, Elaine Kuzmeskus will discuss mediumship and séance in a program beginning at 6:30 p.m. Admission to that event is $15. The private séance after that event is sold out. Details: www.marktwainhouse.org.